text4baby
Text4Baby: 30% worse than I thought
I posted recently about the Text4Baby program to allow moms-to-be to receive text messages during pregnancy. I pointed out that despite glowing reports from the New York Times and Time, T4B had only reached about 3% of its target population:
Text4Baby After One Year: Low Penetration, Slowing Signups
Almost a year ago, I blogged about the Text4baby sms service launched to much fanfare by the US government (including HHS and the White House) along with a consortium of carriers and industry. As I noted, initial results weren't great in terms of reaching the target audience of pregnant women:
they have only managed to sign up 22,327 moms in 6 weeks. That means that so far they've covered about 0.5% of the approximately 4.3 million births per year in the US
3G Doctor on Text4Baby
Our friends at the 3G Doctor blog weigh in on my last posting re Text4Baby (in which I point out that the system is on track to reach only 4% of pregnant women, the target population):
When the Government Does Technology, part II
Last month I noted the launch of the Text4Baby SMS service to educate moms and moms-to-be with skepticism:
As a pediatrician I am pretty strongly committed to the health of moms and babies, but to me this program is exactly what we don't need: an million-dollar custom-built system to send text messages on one particular topic.
When the Government Does Technology
So the U.S. Chief Technology Officer today announced a "free mobile health service for pregnant women and new mothers." The system, text4baby, allows moms to receive text messages about baby health on their phones.


